Mind's Eye: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery

Chief Inspector Van Veeteren knew that murder cases were never as open-and-shut as this one: Janek Mitter woke one morning with a brutal hangover and discovered his wife of three months lying facedown in the bathtub, dead. With only the flimsiest excuse as his defense, he is found guilty of a drunken crime of passion and imprisoned in a mental institution.

Ordeal

Together with her one-year-old daughter, Maja, single mother Sofie Lund moves into the house she inherited from her grandfather. Sofie has such painful memories that she has had every trace of the old man removed - every trace but a locked safe that has been bolted to the basement floor. Inside the safe Sofie finds something shocking that will also become crucial evidence in a case that has plagued Inspector William Wisting for a long time. To follow this lead, though, he must cut across important loyalties and undermine confidence in the police force.

Voices

The Christmas rush is at its peak in a grand ReykjavIk hotel when Inspector Erlendur is called in to investigate a murder. The hotel Santa has been stabbed to death, and Erlendur and his fellow detectives find no shortage of suspects between the hotel staff and the international travelers staying for the holidays. As Christmas Day approaches, Erlendur must deal with his difficult daughter, pursue a possible romantic interest, and untangle a long-buried web of malice and greed to find the murderer.

Where Roses Never Die: Varg Veum

September 1977. Mette Misvãr, a three-year-old girl, disappears without trace from the sandpit outside her home. Her tiny, close middle-class community in the tranquil suburb of Nordas is devastated, but their enquiries and the police produce nothing. Curtains twitch, suspicions are raised, but Mette is never found.

I'm Traveling Alone

A six-year-old girl is found in the Norwegian countryside, hanging lifeless from a tree and dressed in strange doll's clothes. Around her neck is a sign that says, "I'm traveling alone." A special homicide unit in Oslo reopens with veteran police investigator Holger Munch at the helm. Holger's first step is to persuade the brilliant but haunted investigator Mia Krüger, who has been living on an isolated island, overcome by memories of her past.

Jar City

Gold Dagger Award winner Arnaldur Indridason’s novels featuring Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson became international sensations on their way to selling millions of copies worldwide. The debut of morose detective Sveinsson finds the inspector and his team delving into the murder of a retiree with horrifying secrets.

The Secret Hangman

Delia Williamson, a waitress and mother of two young girls, is reported missing. She is soon found in a public park, hanging from the crossbar of a children's swing set. The postmortem reveals that she has been murdered. Her current partner, her ex-husband, and a traveling salesman who frequented her restaurant are all suspects. Before Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond can solve the mystery, more will die. But even as he pursues a killer, he finds himself pursued by a secret admirer.

Another One Goes Tonight: Peter Diamond, Book 16

Two police officers are about to head home after a long night shift when they receive one last call. En route to investigate, the patrol car spins off the road, killing one of the exhausted cops and leaving the other in critical condition. Detective Peter Diamond is assigned to look into the case. His supervisor is desperately hoping Diamond will not discover the officers were at fault. Instead Diamond discovers something even worse - a civilian on a motorized tricycle was involved in the crash and has been lying on the side of the road for hours.

The Lost Boy: The Fjällbacka Series, Book 7

Mats Sverin was Fjällbacka's financial director on a regeneration project worth millions. When he's found dead, detective Patrik Hedström must find answers. It seems Mats was a man who everybody liked yet nobody really knew - a man with something to hide. Is it just a coincidence that his high school sweetheart, Nathalie, has returned to the area? Does she know who Mats really was?

The Caveman

Viggo Hansen was a man nobody ever noticed, even though he lived in the midst of a close-knit community. His death doesn't hit the headlines, but there is something about the case that catches the attention of William Wisting's journalist daughter, Line, and she decides to write a newspaper article with a different twist for the festive season: the portrait of a completely anonymous and obscure person whose death goes unremarked and unmourned.

When the Music's Over: An Inspector Banks Novel

Newly promoted Detective Superintendent Banks finds himself taking on the coldest of cases: a 50-year-old assault allegedly perpetrated by beloved celebrity Danny Caxton. Now Caxton stands accused at the center of a media storm, and it's Banks' job to discover the shocking truth. As more women step forward with accounts of Caxton's manipulation, Banks must piece together decades-old evidence - as the investigation leads him down the darkest of paths....

The Ice Princess

Returning to her hometown after the funeral of her parents, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice cold bath, it seems that she has taken her own life. Erica conceives a memoir about the beautiful but remote Alex, one that will answer questions about their lost friendship. While her interest grows to an obsession, local detective Patrik Hedstrom is following his own suspicions about the case.

Dark Water: Detective Erika Foster, Book 3

When Detective Erika Foster receives a tip-off that key evidence for a major narcotics case was stashed in a disused quarry on the outskirts of London, she orders for it to be searched. From the thick sludge the drugs are recovered, but so is the skeleton of a young child. The remains are quickly identified as seven-year-old Jessica Collins. The missing girl who made headline news 26 years ago.

tmitch says:"i really love this series!! i have listened to all three books. i hope there is another one soon."

Dregs

Four feet…from four different victims? In Stavern around midsummer a severed left foot in a training shoe is washed up on the shore. Then another, and yet another. Altogether four left feet in the course of one week. Police Inspector William Wisting has many years of murder experience behind him, but he has never examined evidence like this. Four feet…from four different victims?

Blood Lines: Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller Series, Book 5

A victim killed with a single, precise stab to the heart appears at first glance to be a robbery gone wrong. A caring, upstanding social worker lost to a senseless act of violence. But for Detective Kim Stone, something doesn't add up. When a local drug addict is found murdered with an identical wound, Kim knows instinctively that she is dealing with the same killer. But with nothing to link the two victims except the cold, calculated nature of their death, this could be her most difficult case yet.

Raven Black: Book One of the Shetland Island Quartet

It is a cold January morning, and Shetland lies beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a splash of color on the frozen ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbor, Catherine Ross. The locals on the quiet island stubbornly focus their gaze on one man - loner and simpleton Magnus Tait.

We Shall Inherit the Wind: Varg Veum

It's 1998. Varg Veum sits by the hospital bedside of his long-term girlfriend, Karin, whose life-threatening injuries provide a deeply painful reminder of the mistakes he's made. Investigating the seemingly innocent disappearance of a wind-farm inspector, Varg Veum is thrust into one of the most challenging cases of his career, riddled with conflicts, environmental terrorism, religious fanaticism, unsolved mysteries and dubious business ethics.

In the Dark Places: An Inspector Banks Novel

It's a double mystery: Two young men have vanished, and the investigation leads to two troubling clues in two different locations - a scorched van and a peculiar bloodstain in an abandoned airport hangar.

Closed for Winter

The summer cottages are closed, and peace is settling over the coast of Vestfold, but the autumn fog conceals evil deeds. Ove Bakkerud’s cottage is ransacked by burglars, and next door he discovers the body of a man who has been beaten to death. Police Inspector William Wisting is uneasy; the desperation he sees in this latest murder is troubling. Meanwhile dead birds are dropping from the sky.

A Great Reckoning: A Novel

When an intricate old map is found stuffed into the walls of the bistro in Three Pines, it at first seems no more than a curiosity. But the closer the villagers look, the stranger it becomes. Given to Armand Gamache as a gift the first day of his new job, the map eventually leads him to shattering secrets. To an old friend and older adversary. It leads the former Chief of Homicide for the Sûreté du Québec to places even he is afraid to go. But must. And there he finds four young cadets in the Sûreté academy, and a dead professor. And, with the body, a copy of the old, odd map.

Friday on My Mind: A Frieda Klein Mystery

A bloated corpse turns up in the Thames, throat slashed, and the only clue is a hospital wristband reading "Dr. F. Klein". Frieda is taken to see the body and realizes with horror that it is Sandy, her ex-boyfriend. She's certain that the killer is Dean Reeve - the man who has never stopped haunting her. But the police think he has been dead for years, and Frieda is their number one suspect. With few options, Frieda goes on the run to save herself and try to uncover the truth.

Entry Island

When a murder rocks the isolated community of Entry Island, insomniac homicide detective Sime Mackenzie boards a light aircraft at St. Hubert airfield bound for the small, scattered chain of Madeline Islands, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as part of an eight-officer investigation team from Montréal. Only two kilometers wide and three long, Entry Island is home to a population of just more than 100 inhabitants, the wealthiest of whom has just been discovered murdered in his home.

No Echo: A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel, Book 6

When celebrity chef Brede Ziegler is discovered stabbed to death on the steps of the Oslo police headquarters, it sends a shock wave through the city's hip in-crowd. Chef Ziegler had lots of famous associates. Could the culprit be among them, or was this a random act of violence? Police investigator Billy T. takes on the case, but he is stymied by conflicting information about what kind of man Ziegler was. It seems nobody really knew him.

The House Sitter: Peter Diamond, Book 8

The corpse of a beautiful woman, clad in only a bathing suit, is found strangled to death on a popular Sussex beach. When she is finally identified, it turns out she was a top profiler for the National Crime Faculty who was working on the case of a serial killer. And though she was a Bath resident, the authorities don't want Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond to investigate the murder. How strange. What could they be trying to hide?

Publisher's Summary

For Waldemar Leverkuhn, a retiree living with his wife in a small unit in an unassuming block of apartments, the day couldn't begin more auspiciously. He, along with three friends, have won the lottery. It's a modest but healthy sum of money and the old men toast to their good luck with a celebratory dinner at their usual haunt. The day ends, however, with Leverkuhn drunk, stumbling, belligerent, and eventually dead in his bed, stabbed 28 times in the chest with a carving knife.

After a cursory investigation on Leverkuhn's few friends and irritable family members that leads to more questions than answers, Leverkuhn's quiet, weary wife incredibly confesses to her husband's murder. The case seems to have solved itself, but when the Leverkuhn's formidable neighbor, Else Van Eck, goes missing and is later discovered in gruesome fashion, Detective Münster and his team find themselves back in the fog and chasing after whisps of clues that indicate that the murders are inextricably linked.

Four old men start the day by winning a modest sum of money which even split between them will be a nice little sum. They go out to celebrate. But, by the end of the day, one man is dead, murdered in his bed with 68 stab wounds. Another of the men has disappeared. And within a couple of days, the landlady from the apartment building of the murdered man also goes missing. Then, the man’s wife comes forward and confesses to the murder. She is convicted and hangs herself in jail. Munster and other officers don’t really believe the wife was strong enough to have inflicted the damage and Munster at least feels she’s protecting someone else, but who? And what happened to the other two people who disappeared? Are all these cases connected? A very good book.

Yes. I thought it was so interesting that Nesser completely set his main character aside (Detective Van Veeteren) and focused on Munster. It literally is Munster's Case. The story is really good and the narration superb.

What did you like best about this story?

Just an opportunity to see Munster fully developed. This is a really good series.

Have you listened to any of Simon Vance’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No. I've read all of Nesser's work on my Kindle. This was my first Nesser audible download I believe. Vance does an amazing job of moving between characters. I look forward to his future work.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?